Drive around,tune In, and turn on!

As a creative person, my life demands that I, from time to time, must pursue employment that requires less of an emotional and or intellectual commitment, but still within keeping of an income that that government has designated slightly above the poverty line. So, with that being said, this past summer, I took a job as a delivery driver for probably Boston's most high-end flower shop.

It was a cool job until the boss, who I imagined was going to be cool, funny smart, and teach me soooo much about the flower industry became a micromanaging, condescending, little control freak with a Napoleon complex and a streak of paranoia usually only seen in coke heads and Mexicans in California.

So needless to say, that job didn’t last very long. But one very cool thing about being the delivery guy was that I got to listen to the radio all day long. And there is nothing better on the radio than talk radio. It is the best! I listen to it almost exclusively.

WBUR in Boston is my mainstay, although I have just discovered Air America Radio, a station with a left-of-center format. They talk about what I feel, but honestly Al Frankin. who is on from noon to 3:00 every day, can get on my nerves. I agree with a lot of what he has to say, but I don’t know, he just seems to be a little tooooo self-important. Whereas Stephanie Miller (9 – noon) is a completely different story. (va-va-VOOM)

On Sunday mornings, I turn to WGBH to get away from the WBUR God show. Not that I don’t like God, I just think that this particular show is boring. I also turn to GBH to listen to Prairie Home Companion. I discovered this show as a hippie kid, hanging out in head shops in Troy, New York. I do listen to conservative right- wing radio on long trips because 1) it keeps me awake by giving me the opportunity to yell at the radio and 2) it pisses my wife off, and it's actually appealing to me to see her mad at something other than me. But I enjoyed driving around in the delivery van all day listening to all of the programs, in between walking up to million dollar homes and handing them million dollar looking arrangements, mostly to people who could be named Consuela or Lupe.

Then for me it's back in the car with Nina Tottenberg. I've never seen her, and I hope I never do. I've imagined her to look like a cross between a young Gloria Steinem and Angelina Jolie. I don't know why. That image just works for me. I saw Terry Gross once, and I was not happy – not that she is an unattractive woman. She’s actually kind of cute with the glasses and short hair and all. She just didn't look the way that I thought she would. She has that great laugh, and she just knows how to conduct an interview. She seems to be smooth and funny and unflappable. But why I thought that she would look like Katharine Hepburn is beyond me.

I like the morning radio call-in shows on NPR and I'm even tempted from time to time to call in. Because that's something I would do. When I was a working musician, I would spend a lot of my late nights returning from a gigs in Rhode Island, or New Hampshire or some other ungodly location @ 3:00 a.m. I would listen to WBZ radio. Because the only thing on NPR @ that time of night is the BBC. I don't even know what Greenwich Mean Time is, but I guess someone cares, cause they keep saying it over and over. There is also a superior sounding guy named Robin Lustig or something like that. No one wants to listen to someone who is apparently over educated, telling his guest in an oh-so-proper and yes condescending accent laden with a tone of insincerity and disdain. "This is your second time in front of the Judge Magistrate, and your barrister has requested a bail reduction because of your apparent hardship which I'm sure was brought on by all of your years of drugs, drinking and debauchery, but I'm sure you don't expect us to believe that that was someone else's computer with the child pornography on it - do you Mr. Glitter?”

I want to hear a local guy, someone on the same time schedule as me. Someone who is nearby someone who is well read, but not too hi-brow. "Hi this is the Jordan Rich show. Tonight we'll be having our monthly look at new movies - anything you've seen? Any thing you like? And later on book-lady is here. Give us a call at..." See, THAT I can handle, but these public radio types "Welcome to The Connection. Today, economist Dr. Lotta Bigwords will be talking about her book entitled Everything You Know About Math is Wrong and Here's Why. This will be followed by our discussion of a recent Yale study on how lint is formed and what that means to the American space program and your calls.” Apparently only MIT graduates are put through to this show. They say some of the callers are from elsewhere, but I am very, very suspicious. But I listen, I learn and eventually the show will have an interview with Bob Dylan or something and it'll be worth it.